Tom knew exactly what he wanted: a plump blackberry muffin, a refill of the premium roast, and a few more moments of delicious quiet. But to his chagrin, the late afternoon crowd was arriving. Students who’d stayed up to all hours of the night memorizing bones, scribbling arcane verse, or drinking in front of the television set—they were shuffling in one after the other now, sporting Doc Martens and khakis and ball caps, mumbling greetings while they stood in line for lattes. Soon, Barenaked Ladies would be cavorting through the speakers. Within the hour, Tom would be hopelessly out of his demographic.
         Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a bag drop, its sleek leather handles fainting to the floor. The new arrival fell into the chair and scraped nosily back towards the table. Here is one already. Soon, they would be plopping down all around him, like strange rain.
         For the best. He had (at most) ten minutes before the tentacles of obligation dragged him towards the door. Ten minutes until he would bus his mug, take one longing glance around the shop, and briskly walk towards his car, which was parked way down by the campus gate. Turning on to Old Seven, he would dodge potholes and drive close to the bumper in front of him, looking down at his watch and squeezing the wheel. If the stoplights cooperated, he would arrive just in time to jockey for position in the elementary school’s circular drive—just in time to see Jason’s chubby face emerge amid the awkward bodies flailing out the doors. With the boy settled and belted, Tom would next drive up the interstate two long exits for Jason’s flute lessons. After sitting in an old woman’s living room for a long half hour—facing the dopey stares of Precious Moments figurines, wincing at the notes limping from Jason’s instrument—he would be back on the highway heading towards the supermarket, Sarah’s anxious voice still ringing in his ears: “Make sure you get a Butterball.” Fifteen minutes in a rush-hour-like line for a frozen boulder of meat, which he would then toss in the back of the car, where it would roll from side to side like an unruly child. Then, the long drive back across town, past the uninspired façade of his apartment complex, to the dry cleaners in order to pick up Sarah’s blazer for tonight’s group session. At long last, his meager reward: a frozen food supper and a few vacant hours in front of the television, while Jason rammed toy trucks against his feet.
         The chair beside him scudded again. A sandaled foot flashed and disappeared from view.
         Tom slanted his eyes in the direction of the noise and then returned to his paper. Below the horoscope, which foresaw “some great thing” happening to him today, an advice columnist chastised a deadbeat dad looking for sympathy. “You have a obligation,” the writer admonished. “You need to accept the life you have created—both yours and your child’s.” Tom nodded grimly. Whatever his other failures, no one could accuse him of shirking responsibility. After his wife finished graduate school, he had dutifully surrendered a fun, lucrative position at an advertising agency in Los Angeles so that they could relocate to Clerestory, Ohio, where she had been hired by the university to counsel the binge drinkers, bulimics, and would-be suicides that masqueraded as students, the leaders of tomorrow. During the first several days in this pinprick of a town, it had rained incessantly. He remembered splashing through curbside rivers with boxes of books and dishware. At the end of the week, with a bad cold brewing and his wife at work with the car, he walked through a steady downpour for medicine. Two steps from the drug store, the wind ambushed him, transforming his favorite umbrella into a useless mass of nylon and metal. As he stood in the middle of the sidewalk, water lapped up from passing cars. An unshaven man in a pickup rolled down his window, as if to ask for directions. Instead, an angry sound crawled from the back of his throat, culminating in a robust “thoo.” It was a bad omen.
         Now, four months later, Tom was still without a job, still without a friend in this Midwestern wasteland. His wife perpetually occupied with work, he turned to cashiers, trying to nudge them beyond “hellos” and “come agains” with involved perspectives on the weather or local politics. Some would merely smile, as if abiding by behavior taught them during a training video. Others might engage him long enough so that, upon shuffling through the sliding doors, he would feel as if he had acquired a friend and, as a result, made this nowhere world a little more like somewhere.
         If he craved interpersonal contact, he could always talk to his son; however, in the brief period since first grade began, Jason’s personality had taken a turn toward the obnoxious. Without warning, the boy had exploded into a non-stop mover and talker, a spirit-draining repository of easily bruised emotions, injuries, and nonsensical stories. Day after day, Jason clambered into the car, chattering about everything from how Miss Moore arranged the desks for math to who refused to eat the crusts of their bologna sandwiches. Just yesterday, ignoring Tom’s reprimand for having slammed the car door, Jason announced: “Smith took my apple.”
         Tom sighed. “What did you do?”
         Jason foraged in his lunchbox and removed a core, its red skin drooping over moist, brown flesh. “Well,” he said, shoving the remnant in his father’s face, “I took it back.”
         In the last month, this Smith was becoming quite a problem. A day earlier, he had made off with Jason’s banana. Last week, it was a pop-top can of fruit cocktail. The week before—baby carrots. Tom could not be sure if this kid was a bona fide bully or a health food nut.
         A sudden scud of the adjacent chair jolted Tom like a slap on the back. Before he could turn, look this bothersome woman in the eye, and say: “will you please,” a soft, almost sultry “sorry,” drifted his way. As he nodded stiffly in acknowledgement, Tom noticed a smooth brown leg cross above a knee. It was late November, but there were people sitting outside, jackets thrown back over plastic chairs. A young couple strolled by the window, locked hands swinging merrily.
         Tom returned to the paper, but now the words were black spots, as if he had spent too long looking at the sun. Lost, disoriented, he tried to regain composure through an adjustment of posture. But while attempting a deft, casual lift of ankle over knee, his leg struck the bottom of the table, causing the near empty mug to wobble. Ears burning, he stared the glass into submission.
         After a cursory glance at the want ads, Tom flashed his eyes at the woman. She was looking straight ahead—over her iced coffee and out the window, a bemused smile brightening her face. Was she waiting for someone? Or simply admiring the autumn day, reveling in its unseasonable surprise? Perhaps it was just a matter of something having simply struck her—some sweet thought or memory that she now unconsciously relished.
         Sarah had no time for such purposeless abstraction. She always had to have something in front of her—notes on a client, a research-laden article, the rough draft of some abstruse work of her own. One evening, easing open the door to her office to say goodnight, Tom had been surprised by a mass of wild hair spilled out under the spotlight of her desk lamp. At first, he thought his wife had collapsed, the words she was reading having finally gotten the best of her. But she slowly raised her head, smiled briefly in his direction, and then returned to an article, her thin lips mouthing words. To Tom, the motion looked distinctly like chewing.
         “You have some metabolism,” he said, hand hanging from the top of the door. He waited several moments for a response—a word, a nod, a something—but when none seemed forthcoming, Tom softly closed the door and shuffled down the silent hallway to bed.
         The woman began rifling through her bag. Keys, compact cases, sunglasses, and papers. Now, this racket was alluring, the movements of someone special, the resident of some cute, disheveled world of her own. He realized his face had frozen into an open-mouthed stare only after she returned his gaze, face reddening, eyebrows arched in apology.
         “Excuse me,” she said, full lips venturing a smile. “I’ve misplaced my watch. Do you have the time?”
         “Two-forty,” Tom answered quickly, flustered by her sudden address.
         “That’s early.” The last word was turned up into a question that wanted an answer.
         Returning to his paper, Tom saw his face as it must have appeared to her: stern, austere, humorless. A direct result of being out of practice with the opposite sex. After all, who were the women in his life? There was his wife’s sister, who called twice a month and to whom he said “yeah, hold on”; there was his mother, but she usually did all the talking. There was his wife, of course, but she hardly counted. He had no old girlfriends who e-mailed out of the blue. There were no attractive mothers who chatted with him over the tops of cars as he waited for his son at school.
         He met his wife quite easily during his first year of college. She took a seat next to him in chemistry class and, by the end of the week, they were study partners. One night in his dorm room, with a series of unbalanced equations between them, Tom leaned toward her and they kissed. After that, a tacit agreement had been reached: they were boyfriend and girlfriend. By his senior year, Tom had grown quite used to her. She had been, even then, more studious than he would have liked; however, on the rare occasions she did pencil unbridled fun into her schedule, he returned to his room immensely satisfied.
         One night, while lounging at his desk, eyes drooping with fatigue, the draft of his last collegiate assignment spread in front of him, Tom sat bolt upright in his chair. He was preternaturally alert, stung by a sharp sensation of depletion. Before he knew it, he had run across campus and scattered impatient knocks across Sarah’s door. When she answered—raw-faced and yawning—he stammered “Will you … will you … marry me?” As she nodded through emerging tears, Tom was relieved—the empty feeling filled in like a hole.
         He folded the paper and laid it aside. Jason would soon be waiting, looking anxiously at his watch and clenching his tiny fists at the thought of being late for his lesson. Perhaps Tom could afford just five more minutes—time enough for another question, time enough to buy her a drink. Then she would invite him to her table, and tell him about the courses she was taking—the novels or treatises that left her dazed, mouth open in wonder.
         But when asked about himself, what could he say? That his marriage—this blessed loving union of man and wife—had become nothing more than a chore, a relationship continued out of some anachronistic sense of duty? That no matter how cute he seemed to others, his son was a royal pain the ass? That he was not merely unemployed but, as of this moment, without as much as a lead? In fact, his resume was not even in readable shape.
         He could lie. He could slip the ring into his pocket and say that he was new in town. He could expunge his family, presenting himself as a returning student, a hardworking single guy who had grown to abhor the dehumanizing nature of corporate America and was now eager to absorb all that a liberal education had to offer. And somehow, all of his talk would reach into this woman and pull her closer, until her hand had impulsively touched his and they were leaving together, to her car, to her apartment … to her bed, where between those long brown sandaled legs he would experience the warm fantastic jolt that would restore to his life the newness of things.
         Tom smiled at the fantasy. Draining the cold bitter dregs of coffee, he slowly rose, bussed his mug, and walked toward the door. Somewhere behind him he heard the quick zip of a bag. Like the arched brows, the nervous smile, the request for time, the sound seemed an indication—a subtle sign of interest. After stalling a few moments at the newspaper rack, Tom proceeded to the exit. Sandals flapped quickly behind him. She was following, admiring his gait. He held the door, felt the whispered thanks nestle in his ear. He kept walking. Five, six, seven steps—each one smaller than the previous. She must catch up. She must make the first move—tap him on the shoulder and offer her number on a napkin.
         As he reached the intersection of Gate and Campus, Tom could no longer stand the suspense. He swung around. The world turned, blurred, and cleared. He surprised a big boned woman who stepped back, mouthed a small o, then quickly passed him shaking her head. Brown legs were nowhere in sight.

Jason bounced into the seat, slamming the door behind him.
         “Aren’t you going to yell at me?” The boy held out his cherubic face, as if asking to be slapped.
         “I’m tired,” Tom sighed.
         “So you aren’t going to yell?”
         Tom flipped the blinker, watching Jason arrange his backpack, lunchbox, and a rolled up poster between his legs.
         “Do it again and you go in the trunk.”
         “Don’t we go left? Left means flute lessons.”
         Tom narrowed his eyes and snapped the blinker down.
         While Jason thumped against the door with a shoe, Tom bit his lip and thought again about the curious, beautiful woman who asked him the time. Would she be at the coffee shop tomorrow? If so, he would approach her, stand beside her table, smile broadly, and say: I sat next to you yesterday, and, frankly, you were annoying as hell. And she would laugh and say I’m sorry, but I was nervous and distracted and she would go on to tell him that she had just heard good news: she’d won a scholarship or been accepted to some prestigious graduate program. That explains it. Explains what, she would say, her heard tilting with curiosity, a few strands of hair falling across her face. It explains yesterday afternoon, that look in your eyes, like you were just drinking up the world. And she would say, laughing: I think it was just the caffeine. No, it wasn’t the caffeine. It was the buzz of life.
         “Mom told me to tell you remember the Butterball.”
         “What?” Tom had almost forgotten the boy.
         “For Thanksgiving. Twenty-four pounds.”
         Tom pulled onto Old Seven and enjoyed one hundred feet of unimpeded road. Then: the back up. He looked down at the speedometer, watched the needle wilt to zero.
         “Look at the turkey I made,” Jason said, flapping a piece of brown construction paper in front of his face. “That’s my hand.”
         A sports utility vehicle hung in front of him like a mote. He thought again of a tall, steaming mug of premium roast. Just one more cup would have sustained him—given him the energy to handle the traffic and Jason and flute lessons and supermarkets and whatever else this day had in store.
         “Smith says she likes me.”
         He turned to his son, who was now tapping out some happy rhythm on the floor.
         “Don’t do that.” He placed a firm hand on Jason’s knee. “What are you talking about?”
         “Smith. She likes me.”
         “A girl?” Tom popped the steering wheel with his palm. “This Smith’s a girl?”
         “What did you think she was? Some kind of a monster?” Jason growled and curled his tiny hands into claws, which he used to rip at his father’s shirt.
         “I wasn’t listening.” Tom locked the boy’s wrists in a fist and returned the wild hands to the other side of the car.
         “That’s okay.” Jason gave a reckless shrug and became preoccupied with his lunchbox. After a moment of rummaging, he happily announced, “She gave me this.”
         The light changed back to red, and a few horns sounded. Behind them, somebody leaned out a window and filled the air with a dark cloud of obscenities.
         “Here,” Jason said, bounding forward in the seat. “Try it.”
         Shoulders and neck stiff with tension, Tom turned to scold his son. At the same time, Jason was rushing an object up towards his face. The object—a plastic container—struck Tom in the nose, causing cold, red liquid to splash down his chin.
         “Ohh, I’m sorry,” Jason mumbled. “I didn’t—” The boy retreated towards the door, grabbing onto the seat belt harness.
         As the liquid dripped down his neck, angry words roiled up through Tom’s throat. He had never hit his child, but he imagined this now: lashing out the back of his hand, cracking him on the leg or cheek, shaking him roughly by the arm. Any of these actions would have restored order to his world, given him a momentary crumb of satisfaction. With great effort, Tom kept his hands on the wheel. Breathe, he told himself as the violent emotion bubbled upwards, threatening to course wildly over the rim of his temper. Breathe again. And again.
         Taking a Kleenex from the dashboard, Tom began to wipe his face. As he held the stained tissue, he had the distinct impression he was looking at his own blood. He felt dizzy with fatigue. If he could only lie down, stretch out along the front seat and escape the world with a twenty-minute snooze.
         “I’m sorry,” Jason offered again, this time his voice so strange and remote that Tom looked to his right, to see if the boy were still in the car. He resembled a mountain climber in peril, his hold on the harness beginning to loosen. If Tom failed to act soon, Jason would slide away, tumbling down to an out-of-reach place. Tom watched—curious, frozen. He felt himself slipping into abstraction, failing to even notice the tissue he was applying again to his face until he caught its odor—a deep fruity smell, something that conjured up the image of a punch bowl waiting to be served. Tom touched the tissue to his tongue, licked it a few times, tasted the sweet cranberry.
         Jason pupils began a slow retreat.
         “It’s not bad,” Tom said at last. “You have more?”
         Inching back from the door, releasing his grip on the harness, Jason smiled, the corners of lips punching sharply at his cheeks. “Daddy,” he said, waggling a chubby finger back and forth. “You’ll spooooil your appetite.”
         Tom was not concerned about supper. Right now, he just wanted the juice, because that first taste was so good, because it seemed to work on him like an antidote, an aggressive treatment for the sourness in his mouth, the bitterness of his mood.
         Suddenly—miraculously—the traffic began to crawl. At the light, the suv swerved angrily off the route, exposing Tom to a clear view of traffic for what seemed miles ahead. They would be late for lessons, late arriving home. Sarah would be at the door, face contracted in a scowl. There might be poisonous words, the sharp stab of heels down the front porch stairs. He did not care. In the middle of this unseasonable day, he had obtained just what he needed. It would do for now.

MICHAEL COCCHIARALE is an Assistant Professor of English at Widener University (Chester, Pennsylvania), where he teaches American literature and writing courses. "Refill" is part of a collection (in progress) about a small, midwestern college town called Clerestory. Other recently published "Clerestories" may be found in Slow Trains and Thunder Sandwich.